Lesson 6: Using The Four Branches of Theology
The Four Branches of Theology
The Bible demands that we interpret it theologically.
What Is Theology?
Theology is the study of God. And Christian theology uses the Bible, God’s perfect revelation, as the authoritative foundation for studying God. The Bible is a perfect unity of authoritative truth untainted by error. But as author Jared Wilson puts it, “[t]he Bible is a big book with lots of words.” So the very size of Scripture demands that we summarize doctrines in order to fit the biblical testimony into our heads. This is the work of theology.
Let’s define theology more precisely:
the·ol·o·gy noun
the work of understanding God through attention to the entire Bible
The Four Branches
Theologians distinguish four main disciplines of theology.¹
Biblical Theology: “studies how the whole Bible progresses, integrates, and climaxes in Christ.”
Systematic Theology: “discerns how a passage theologically coheres with the whole Bible.”
Historical Theology: “surveys and evaluates how significant exegetes and theologians have understood the Bible and theology.”
Practical Theology: “applies the text to yourself, the church, and the world by answering the question ‘How should we then live?’”
Thus, we could picture theology as a tree, with four large branches.
Where We Find Them
Authors use these four disciplines throughout the Bible. Let’s consider just one book of the Bible: Galatians.
Paul wrote this letter to a largely Gentile church. This church was listening to false teachers, who were preaching a different gospel (Gal 1:6–7). To combat this danger, Paul defends his gospel as divine in origin, not human (1:10–2:21), and combats the false gospel by presenting arguments from experience (3:1–5), from Scripture (3:6–14), from salvation history (3:15–4:11), and from friendship (4:12–20). Based on his arguments, he then calls them to live in freedom from slavery to the law through the power of the Holy Spirit (4:21–6:10).²
As he passionately defends his gospel, Paul uses each of the four branches of theology: historical theology in 2:1–14, systematic theology in 3:5–14, biblical theology in 3:15–29, and practical theology in 5:1, 7, 13–26.
We’ll examine each in turn. First, we’ll study the disciplines that focus on interpreting Scripture with Scripture (biblical theology and systematic theology). Then we’ll study the discipline that focuses on refining interpretation with the work of other believers (historical theology). Finally, we’ll study the discipline that focuses on applying the text to daily life (practical theology). Note that this lesson merely introduces these four branches.
What do you hope to learn about the four branches of theology? Write a prayer asking the Lord to help you fulfill that goal.
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